Nausea update in which I swear a lot and abuse the all caps key

Posted onAugust 13, 2008|Comments Off on Nausea update in which I swear a lot and abuse the all caps key

Nausea medicine is a Good Thing. The stuff I’m on, Reclan, while it doesn’t make me feel *completely* normal, still has gotten me back to functionality, which is wonderful. I was talking to my sister about this (she has a new blog! Go read! Maybe then she will post more!) and we were trying to figure out why the hell I didn’t get on medicine the last time around, and equally, why the hell it took her several months to get on the meds herself. Some of it, no doubt, is due to the diffidence on the part of OBs everywhere towards prescribing unnecessary meds in the first trimester. Which, OK. I get that. But let me be the first to tell you: this shit is NECESSARY for some of us. I think last time I wasn’t clear enough about just how sick I was, because this time I basically went in and said: I’m so nauseated I can’t function. Give me some meds. And I got some, easy as that. But ALSO, I Blame the Patriarchy. By which I mean, the whole screwed up culture around pregnancy and childbirth and what’s “normal” and “natural” etc., etc. Both sis and I agreed that if we heard ONE MORE person tell us “oh, the sicker you are the healthier the baby is!” we were going to SPEW ALL OVER THEIR FEET. I mean, that may be true and everything, but WTF? Is that supposed to make me feel better? Like, oh, well, if it means that the baby is healthy then I don’t even MIND not being able to care for my 2 year old – in fact I’d do a little dance of joy if I could, you know, get up off the couch and/or stop feeling like crawling into a corner and dying. I mean, come the hell on. And all those books and websites that wax lyrical about how “natural” all these hellish symptoms are. Again, like that’s going to make you feel better. Well, let me be the first to say FUCK THAT. Lots of things are “natural” – stomach flu, the bubonic plague, and ebola come to mind – but you’re not going to frown on someone for treating THOSE symptoms. As my sister said, the baby is still getting the benefit of all those hormones, but with the medicine they can have those benefits without making me feel like life is overrated. Ergo: Good Thing. Q.E.D.

However, that being said, I do have to take issue with the universe for one thing about these anti-nausea meds: almost all of them have constipation as their main side-effect. Which is funny (really, can’t you hear me laughing?) because pregnancy also has that as a main side-effect, and even MORE hilariously, you know what, besides pregnancy, makes you feel nauseated? CONSTIPATION. Christ. So I’ve started taking a fiber pill every time I take an anti-nausea pill, and eating cereals so crammed with bran that I may start neighing and jumping fences any minute now. I’m also wearing my fancy acupressure bracelet at night instead of taking pills, just to give my system a break. This probably sounds like a lot of hassle, and indeed it is, but it’s so much better being less sick, I’m willing to do whatever it takes.